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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23596729">Laundry Day</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildglitterwolf/pseuds/wildglitterwolf'>wildglitterwolf</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Laundry, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:15:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,895</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23596729</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildglitterwolf/pseuds/wildglitterwolf</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Rick and Cliff bonded over laundry.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cliff Booth/Rick Dalton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Laundry Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Wanted to try the ‘five times’ format and laundry was a domestic thing I hadn’t tackled yet so why not?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I.</p><p>Rick hated going to the laundromat.</p><p>He swore as soon as he bought a house, the first thing he would do is buy a washer and dryer. And then, of course, hire a maid to do his laundry for him.</p><p>Before <i>Bounty Law</i> took off, Rick could enjoy his anonymity. Now these days, he’d find himself trying to disguise himself under his hat and sunglasses and bury his nose in a book. It was working really well until he heard a “Hey there, Rick!” from the figure walking by him. </p><p>Rick wrinkles his nose as he lifts his eyes up from his book. Ah, what’s his name? He just started on as his stuntman a couple weeks ago.</p><p>“Cliff, in case you forgot.”</p><p>“I-I-I didn’t forget. You interrupted me so takes me awhile for me to remember shit.”</p><p>“Uh huh. Mind if I take the one next to you?” Cliff asks, pointing over to the vacant washer but heads towards it before he even gets permission anyways and dumps his entire bag in.</p><p>“Y-you just dump it all in together like that? You don’t sort that shit?” Rick asks watching him curiously, self conscious of the fact he had a load for just about every color of the rainbow.</p><p>“Nah. Didn’t bring the wife’s load in and if I don’t got to worry about her shit, I ain’t sorting. Anything that would bleed out has at this point anyways.”</p><p>Rick laughs and shakes his head. “Shit, what’s the point of having a wife if she ain’t doing laundry for ya? It would be the first thing I’d tell her to do.”</p><p>“Trust me...” Cliff says as he tosses the detergent in and fishes around in his pocket for coins, “... you get a wife and there will be days you’ll come to do laundry just to get away from her.”</p><p> </p><p>II.</p><p>Rick made good on his self-promise when he bought his house and soon enough he had Cliff over help getting the washer and dryer installed in the garage. As a way of thanks for helping, he let Cliff have first crack at it.</p><p>“Still don’t know how you can just throw it all in one load like that,” Rick says as he watches Cliff heave his bundle into the washer.</p><p>“Saves time and money, mainly.”</p><p>“Don’t gotta worry about that now.”</p><p>“Still save on your water bill and time moving loads?”</p><p>“Eh, don’t matter much. Plus, thinking of hiring some help to take care of the place and all. Live the real fucking Hollywood life finally.”</p><p>“Oh? You offering me a job?” </p><p>“Wh-what?  N-no, no, gonna get a real maid. Y-you don’t wanna be doing housework, that’s a woman’s job, right?”</p><p>Cliff raises an eyebrow at him as he leans on the washer. “I do my own laundry while having a woman. I also do things like the dishes when asked, I don’t mind. If ya leave me to my own devices I’ll let it become a mess, but I’m still more than willing to help out if my partner needs it.”</p><p>“That’s kind of ya but you don’t need this shit on top of stunting and home life. But enough of that, how does this fucking thing work?”</p><p>The two of them went through some trial and error trying to get the washer working before the load ran normally. While Cliff started fiddling with the dryer to get it ready, Rick brought his clothes out and proceeded to separate them into about seven different loads, some of them with only three or two items in them.</p><p>“You’re that scared of bleeding? You can easily condense this to two or three loads.”</p><p>“Listen. You have your way, I have mine.”</p><p>Cliff just laughs and shakes his head. “Man, I pray for the poor lady you’re gonna hire, I really do.”</p><p> </p><p>III.</p><p>It had been a rough few months ever since the “incident” on the boat, a period that seemed forever ago and yet felt like it happened yesterday simultaneously. Cliff spent time in a cell, of course, but even he doesn’t know how he managed to get away without a prison sentence as the evidence seemed all but damning. And Rick! Rick was there every step of the way, never once faltering in his loyalty or treating him like the murderer he was accused of being. Cliff honestly wondered if Rick somehow paid the jury off with cash or simply his charm as it made no sense otherwise why he was heading home in the passenger seat of Rick’s car instead of the bus to what could have potentially been a life sentence.</p><p>Well. If he was feeling lucky, and god knows he was, then maybe…</p><p>Cliff barely waited until Rick had pulled into the driveway and turned the engine off before grabbing his face and kissing him hard. He expected Rick to freak out, cuss him out, smack him, whatever the usual flustered fanfare was. But oh fuck, when the other man not only returned it, but nearly pushed Cliff back in his seat by the sheer force of it, well, Cliff knew Rick had been waiting for this moment probably as long as he was.</p><p>And now nearly two hours later, he found himself sitting on top of the just loaded dryer of wet bed sheets, eyes closed as the exhaustion of the day finally caught up to him. Avoiding a guilty verdict and finally fucking your best friend after years of pining in the same day would probably wear anyone out emotionally.</p><p>“Cliff?”</p><p>“Hmm?” Cliff didn’t hear Rick come into the garage. Rick had taken a shower like he said he would and was dressed in his favorite robe, a stein in one hand, an Old Chattanooga in the other, and an unlit cigarette dangling in his lips. “Shit, man. I think I feel asleep. Good shower?”</p><p>“Since when is a shower a good one anyways?” Rick hands him the beer so he can replace the cigarette in his hand and holds it out to Cliff. “Mind lighting it? Think I left mine in the car and I ain’t in the mood to go searching for it right now.”</p><p>“Mmm, when you aren’t taking it alone. Should have waited for me.” Cliff fiddles around in his pocket and pulls his lighter out, takes Rick’s cigarette and sticks it between his own teeth to light it and takes a drag. “Nah. Think I still prefer Red Apple.”</p><p>“They’re shit and-and you know it.” </p><p>Cliff shrugs and takes one more drag before handing it back over and cracking open his beer. Fuck, he hasn’t gone this long before without having one. “Man. That tastes like heaven. You don’t know what you take for granted until you don’t have it anymore.”</p><p>Rick wasn’t fast enough to hide the blush that creeped up on his face from Cliff’s comment. That sentiment was definitely true for him; fuck, if Cliff was sentenced, even if just for a year, Rick would be at a lost. He already went the last few months with barely seeing him as is, and it was during those months he realized how much Cliff meant to him as more than just a friend. And boy, Rick was relieved Cliff not only felt the same, but was the one with the balls to do it first otherwise they’d still be in this endless dance of forbidden looks and Cliff’s not so subtle innuendos. </p><p>“Why you sitting up there, anyways?”</p><p>“The vibration is comforting. Care to join me?” Cliff doesn’t wait for an answer before setting down his beer can on the washer and taking Rick’s stein to do the same. The lack of keeping in shape over his trial period was evident as what was usually an easy task of moving Rick after say a drunken night out felt like a struggle trying to hoist him up. But he finally managed to get Rick straddling his lap.</p><p>“Damn, man. Maybe this was a bad idea. You on me like this and you might need another shower.”</p><p>“No. I’m tired. I-It’s been a fucking exhausting… ex.. exhaust…” Rick yawned as the comfort of being held like this and the active dryer somehow made the perfect combo to head him towards dreamland. “I need a nap.”</p><p>“Say no more, partner. Sleep until the dryer is done.”</p><p>But even once the dryer finished, Rick was still snoring softly and Cliff was too content watching him to wake him.</p><p> </p><p>IV.</p><p>Rick told Cliff he fired the maid because she was terrible at her job. Cliff thinks the maid quit because Rick was terrible to work for. Either way, Cliff was now filling that role as he needed some sort of job now that the whole fucking industry was shunning him.</p><p>Today was laundry day on Rick’s daily task list, and while Rick was at work, Cliff could get away with bending the rules. He’d condense Rick’s loads or sneak some of his own clothes in just to save time. And Cliff always got away with it, too. Until today. </p><p>Rick came home early without warning. Something about his co-star getting food poisoning and production got postponed for the day. And you’d think he walked into the garage and found Cliff actively murdering someone by the way Rick reacted.</p><p>“The hell you doing, Cliff?? Why are all my colors in a pile? And is that… are those your underwear mixed in with mine that you’re folding? Goddamnit, Cliff! I-I-I-I gave you specific in-instructions on how I want my laundry done!”</p><p>“And yet, you haven’t noticed all this time so I guess it’s not such a bad thing, right? Now… you can let me finish folding or you can do it yourself.”</p><p>Rick stopped protesting but continued to act annoyed. He decided to go make a drink while Cliff finished separating their clothes and putting Rick’s away. Cliff threw all his own clean clothes back in the dirty laundry bag, tossed it back in his car, and that was that for the day.</p><p>When Cliff got back to his trailer, he realized he was missing a shirt. How he could have missed a shirt as opposed to a sock was weird. He must have left it at Rick’s and might have fallen out before it got washed even. </p><p>But when Cliff went back to Rick’s, he couldn’t find it. Fuck. How the fuck does a shirt just vanish? Guess he really lost it.</p><p>Cliff finally found it a week later when he was stripping Rick’s bedsheets, stuffed under Rick’s pillow and yeah, definitely still smelled so it didn’t get washed. </p><p>“Well,” Cliff chuckles, beaming when he realized what possible reason Rick would have for sleeping with Cliff’s smelly old shirt, “guess it’s his now.”</p><p> </p><p>V.</p><p>Rick slowly sipped his coffee as he stared longingly out at the pool, watching the rain poured down. Fuck, he hated the rain. He didn’t move all the way from Missouri to sunny California to deal with this shit.</p><p>Cliff slips in from the garage with a large basket of clean clothes. “Fresh laundry, straight from the dryer. Get it while it’s hot!” </p><p>While it’s been awhile since Rick did his own laundry (since the laundromat days pretty much), he always missed out on that satisfaction of warm dryer clothes. But that coupled with it being a cold, rainy day made it impossible to resist.</p><p>“Fuck. Fuuuuck. Oh fuck, this is gooood,” Rick says in a muffled toned as he buries his head like an ostrich in the basket.</p><p>“Hey, man. At least let me set this down before you decide to do that. Can’t hold you up like this.” Cliff puts the basket on the table and Rick keeps snuggling with the clothes until the heat vanishes.</p><p>“Got another load later, don’t look so glum,” Cliff chuckles as he flips the television on to an <i>I Love Lucy</i> marathon before sitting down next to Rick and gets started on folding. “Care to help?”</p><p>“Not fucking much else to do, I guess.” Rick watches Cliff’s technique, as if Rick wasn’t the one who told him how he likes his stuff folded, and tries to copy. He’s a lot slower, doing one for each of Cliff’s two or three, but he’s still proud of himself. “Hey, how about I order some Chinese? Sound good?”</p><p>“Sounds good. Sweet and sour pork, fried fried rice, and oh… egg rolls.” Cliff stacks Rick’s clothes and takes them to the bedroom to put away as he listens to Rick struggle with the limited English on the other end of the line in the other room.</p><p>Cliff has noticed over the months that somehow his clothes would start appearing more frequently in Rick’s drawers. But that’s as Cliff intended, purposely leaving an article of (clean) clothing behind to see what Rick would do with it. Maybe it was Rick’s way of saying ‘you forgot this, you prick, take it back’ or ‘if you’re gonna fucking leave your clothes here, you might as well move in with me’, something of that nature without actually saying it. </p><p>“How’s the old language barrier? You didn’t curse at them this time, I’m proud of you.” Cliff rejoins Rick on the couch and pulls the actor against him and lies down with him on his chest.</p><p>“Still fucking can’t understand them half the time.”</p><p>“Mmmhmm.”</p><p>“Don’t be mad at me if the order is wrong.”</p><p>“I’ll eat anything, it’s fine.”</p><p>Rick sighs and turns his head towards the television. “Oh, it’s this one. The job switching one, where Lucy and Ethel get jobs and Ricky and Fred have to do housework.”</p><p>“Wanna switch for the day? You can do your own chores and I’ll act.”</p><p>“Can you act?”</p><p>“Don’t know, never tried.”</p><p>“So… all of this… not an act?”</p><p>Cliff lifts his head to look at him. “The fuck you talking about, man?”</p><p>“You. Being interested in me. Playing this game of ‘house’ with me. It’s not an act?”</p><p>Rick could see the genuine hurt in Cliff’s eyes, and quickly regretted saying as such.  “I’m sorry, I-I-I just, j-just not-not use to anyone actually want to, to do th-this with me,”</p><p>“It’s not an act.”</p><p>And Rick just left it at that.</p><p>“Hey, that’s the dryer. More warm clothes for you to snuggle with.” Cliff gently pushes him up and slips off the couch to go deal with them, leaving Rick feeling insecure, mind racing with negative thoughts on how much Cliff must hate him. He was so preoccupied he didn’t hear Cliff come back in.</p><p>“HEY! FUCK!”</p><p>“What? Thought you wouldn’t mind getting warm clothes dumped on you.”</p><p>“It’s the without warning part!”</p><p>The next few minutes turned into a weird snowball fight of sorts, except with crumpling up underwear instead of snow as they flung them at each other until once again the heat disappeared.</p><p>“Fuck you, I wasted precious warm clothes time on your sorry ass.”</p><p>“And that’s the last load.”</p><p>Rick made Cliff clean up the mess and put them away while he went to go answer the delivery guy. Rick even takes it a step further and makes big heaping plates for both of them and brings those, the fortune cookies, and a couple of beers out in front of the television where Cliff has already sat back down in front of.</p><p>“Thanks, darling.”</p><p>“Sure, hon,”</p><p>Rick leans against Cliff as they finish the episode, Rick smiling and laughing with a full mouth, unaware of the sweet and sour sauce stain on his shirt until the plate was clean. “Fuck! Cliff, I-I need this cleaned, now.”</p><p>“And I thought I was done with laundry today. Alright, let me have it.”</p><p>Rick takes his shirt off and gives it to Cliff to go soak while he sits there unsure what to do. He remembers the fortune cookies and decides to grab one and crack it open, reading the message inside: <i>If you want the rainbow, you have to tolerate the rain.</i></p><p>“The fuck does that mean? It’s literally raining right now. But I don’t care about actual rainbows.”</p><p>“I like rainbows.”</p><p>“Shit, Cliff. You get that that stain out?”</p><p>“It’s soaking, gotta have patience.” Cliff grabs his fortune cookie and cracks it open. “<i>Don’t worry about money. The best things in life are free.</i> Sounds right.”</p><p>Rick looked at him like he was crazy. Cliff was dirt poor compared to Rick and Rick was never worry free about money. “The fuck you mean by that?”</p><p>“You’re free.”</p><p>Rick’s eyes widen as he starts to turn red. “N-no, I still p-pay you.”</p><p>“But if say, I lived here and you gave me my allowance as more like a husband would a wife, is that free?”</p><p>“I-I-I…”</p><p>“And I got that rainbow fortune last time, so you’re my rainbow in that message, if you need to know. I hope I’m yours.”</p><p>Rick reread it with Cliff in place and thought about all the shit they’ve been through these years together. Well, fuck.</p><p>“So. You wanna fucking move in?”</p><p>“Well my clothes seemed to already have so… shit, why not?”</p><p>And it seemed almost at that exact moment the rain stopped as if it was a sign, and Rick felt spooked. “Fine, you fucking rainbow. You can have the left side of the drawers.”</p>
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